Discipleship

Top Bible Verses about Discipleship

Matthew 4:18–21

Now as he was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew, throwing a casting net into the sea (for they were fishermen). And he said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Read Matthew 4:18–21

Matthew 8:18–22

Now when Jesus saw many crowds around him, he gave orders to depart to the other side. And a scribe approached and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go!” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” And another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead!” Read Matthew 8:18–22

Mark 8:34–35

And summoning the crowd together with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life on account of me and of the gospel will save it. Read Mark 8:34–35

Luke 14:25–33

Now large crowds were going along with him, and he turned around and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and furthermore, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, wanting to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise after he has laid the … Read Luke 14:25–33

1 John 2:4–6

The one who says “I have come to know him,” and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in this person. But whoever keeps his word, truly in this person the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in him. The one who says that he resides in him ought also to walk just as that one walked. Read 1 John 2:4–6

What It Means to Imitate God

Do not wonder that a person is able to be an imitator of God. He is able, if God wills it. For in not oppressing one’s neighbors, and to not desire to have even more than the weaker ones, and not being rich and compelling those more inferior, is being happy, and in these things no one is able to imitate God but these things are outside the majesty of that one. But whoever takes up the burden of his neighbor, who wishes to do good to another who is worse off in that he is better off, who having received the things from God, he holds on to these things, providing to those in need. He becomes a god to those who receive them; this one is an imitator of God.

Epistle to Diognetus

Do Not Fear; You Have No Life to Lose

Why should you fear to be stripped of that which you have resigned already to Christ? It is the first lesson you learn, if a Christian: to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow your Master, so that the enemy comes too late. You have no life to lose because you have given it already to Christ, nor can man take away that without God’s leave. All you have is insured, and though God has not promised you immunity from suffering in this kind, yet he has undertaken to bear the loss, indeed, to pay you a hundredfold, and you will not stay for it till another world.

William Gurnall

Breadth verses Depth

Much has been done of late to promote the production of dwarfish Christians. The endeavor has been to increase breadth at the expense of depth. What would you think of those who should break the dams of our reservoirs to let the water spread over the country?… If, in order to spread our sea, we make it very shallow, and it breathes miasma and death over the plain, it will be a sorry exchange for life eternal. Oh, to have a church built up with the deep godliness of men who know the Lord in their very hearts, and will seek to follow the Lamb wherever he goes!